I don't see how you did that, since I was only speaking in generalities and nothing I said had anything to with adoption or baby formula.

I figured it was obvious, but I'll spell it out.

You mentioned child birth and breastfeeding being activities that only women can do. This is obviously true. However the relation established with a child isn't necessarily based on those specific actions. For example, a mother who adopts a child can have a closer relationship than a biological mother who puts up the child for adoption, and implying that there is a recognizable relationship purely based on genetics is not true either. For example you wouldn't recognize your biological mother in a line up of similar looking strangers if you'd never met her before. We as society put importance on biological family, its not based on nature itself.

Similarly a woman who feeds her child with formula would not necessarily have a different relationship than a woman who breastfeeds.

If you take this to the next logical step, these are roles played by people and not necessarily gender specific. It's not out of the ordinary for a man to bottle feed a baby, even with real breast milk. Other roles such as caretaker or provider are also gender neutral.

In this context Mother is simply a female parent, and Father is simply a male parent. You can choose to put a genetic overlay on top of that, but they don't have any predefined roles.

Meh. women and men will truly be equal when the same number of women as men are in the front lines of war dying for their country. i'm not talking about helping out the wounded but firing a gun, getting maimed or killed. If there is to be real equality then have women included in the drafts? (if they already are, then correct me)

That's just an aspect that I think is important. Of course there are many more factors that contribute to the equality of genders...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_military

Enjoy, some of it is actually a good read, there is a really nice write up on Roza Shanina, a Russian sniper in WW2. She killed about 50 Germans on her own.

Some countries (Like the US) try to restrict women in military however because they feel women coming home dead is more depressing than men coming home dead, to which I say BS. A life is a life, and a life lost is tragic, no matter what the gender.

Wait... what!? Everything I've ever read points to conditioning/physiological requirements... which I still call BS on, but still... I've never even heard of this "emotional" line of reasoning. I've heard of some of the typical entrenched social/chauvinist reasons..

I'm all for the IDF lines of thinking and letting women in all combat roles, personally, as long as the women condition themselves to meet those roles.

Ahh well... they can still be fighter pilots here so that's pretty .. hot..

Wait... what!? Everything I've ever read points to conditioning/physiological requirements... which I still call BS on, but still... I've never even heard of this "emotional" line of reasoning. I've heard of some of the typical entrenched social/chauvinist reasons..

I'm all for the IDF lines of thinking and letting women in all combat roles, personally, as long as the women condition themselves to meet those roles.

Ahh well... they can still be fighter pilots here so that's pretty .. hot..

lol one of my friends was following the congress debate on it VERY closely, so I ended up reading posts by her on facebook everyday, including a link where one of them was quoted as saying that americans wouldn't be able to handle women coming home in caskets. As if gender makes a bloody difference there. Death is death.

I'm sure I could harvest the link off her page and send you it via PM :)

Also, another common argument is that the female soldiers would "Distract" or make the male soldiers "bahave different" in a combat situation, to which I say those men shouldn't be soldiers anyways. When you're in combat, a "Hot female" shouldn't be able to distract you, at all.
I believe they thought the men would either act braver, in which case likely dying, to impress the women? Idk. Or just be lusty in enemy territory.

Wait... what!? Everything I've ever read points to conditioning/physiological requirements... which I still call BS on, but still... I've never even heard of this "emotional" line of reasoning. I've heard of some of the typical entrenched social/chauvinist reasons..

I'm all for the IDF lines of thinking and letting women in all combat roles, personally, as long as the women condition themselves to meet those roles.

Ahh well... they can still be fighter pilots here so that's pretty .. hot..

lol one of my friends was following the congress debate on it VERY closely, so I ended up reading posts by her on facebook everyday, including a link where one of them was quoted as saying that americans wouldn't be able to handle women coming home in caskets. As if gender makes a bloody difference there. Death is death.

I'm sure I could harvest the link off her page and send you it via PM :)

Also, another common argument is that the female soldiers would "Distract" or make the male soldiers "bahave different" in a combat situation, to which I say those men shouldn't be soldiers anyways. When you're in combat, a "Hot female" shouldn't be able to distract you, at all.
I believe they thought the men would either act braver, in which case likely dying, to impress the women? Idk. Or just be lusty in enemy territory.

Wait... what!? Everything I've ever read points to conditioning/physiological requirements... which I still call BS on, but still... I've never even heard of this "emotional" line of reasoning. I've heard of some of the typical entrenched social/chauvinist reasons..

I'm all for the IDF lines of thinking and letting women in all combat roles, personally, as long as the women condition themselves to meet those roles.

Ahh well... they can still be fighter pilots here so that's pretty .. hot..

lol one of my friends was following the congress debate on it VERY closely, so I ended up reading posts by her on facebook everyday, including a link where one of them was quoted as saying that americans wouldn't be able to handle women coming home in caskets. As if gender makes a bloody difference there. Death is death.

I'm sure I could harvest the link off her page and send you it via PM :)

Also, another common argument is that the female soldiers would "Distract" or make the male soldiers "bahave different" in a combat situation, to which I say those men shouldn't be soldiers anyways. When you're in combat, a "Hot female" shouldn't be able to distract you, at all.
I believe they thought the men would either act braver, in which case likely dying, to impress the women? Idk. Or just be lusty in enemy territory.

It's good of you to admit defeat in an entertaining way. I can now consider my lunchbreak over :P

Oooh, the "C" word. Okay. Gotcha - thanks. No link necessary, but I appreciate it, haha. Their debates are significantly different than ours.

I'll admit I haven't been paying attention to them. Like... at all.

Yeah, congress likes to rub people in all the wrong ways, without even buying us dinner first.
They throw stuff around that they know nothing or little about, or bring up entirely outdated facts, and more so, opinions.

Gender stereotypes have been an issue for what may be as long as humans have walked the earth but i think simply what it comes down to is humans desire to classify things because if something doesn't fit neatly into a classification that requires thought and people don't like to think they want it to be one way and not have to worry about it any more. Problem is there is no one way and there never will be one but for some reason society's values are stuck on lying to themselves about this. As the human race we have come a long way but there are still plenty of people who choose to live in ignorance simply following the same foolish notions of those who came hundreds of years before them because they have no desire to truly think on the issue and would rather continue living following the same classification for no reason other than thats the way it has been. What i find so funny is just about everyone is aware that they don't fit in any gender trait classification men know they have feelings and women are aware they can be as aggressive as any man i find it so silly that people actually try to confine their character to the gender traits that society has deemed acceptable and when they step outside those traits they think something is wrong with them when in reality its completely normal because as human beings both men and women share all the same personality traits.

First, I must handle a matter that has been bugging me -- Stereotypes are not intrinsically bad/wrong.

I always thought that a stereotype was something of a perception of characteristics thought to be held by a large portion of a specific group. Dictionary.com seems to have a similar definition. It makes sense that people with similar goals and interests tend to group with each other. Likewise, it also seems sensible to see a group of people that associate with each other, and infer that they might share some common characteristics. Stereotypes are the observations of those characteristics. Sports fans like to talk about their teams. Mathematicians like to solve interesting problems. Philanthropists like to help people. Making judgements about anyone based on stereotypes leads to inaccuracies, so I do not approve of it. But stereotypes can be a useful guide to determine a course of action based on very little information. I might not know anything about you, but if you wear a specific team's baseball cap, I'd infer that it's possible you like that team, and strike a conversation on the point. You may just wear the cap because you think it looks cool, but either way, I've learned something about you because I've stereotyped you. Yes, it's wrong to think that someone likes baseball because they wear a baseball cap, if only because it might be untrue. However, I've seen way too many people say that "stereotypes are useless" or "wrong," when I see can see some valuable utility.

That doesn't mean, however, that stereotypes accurately describe a group's common characteristics. People may think things like "women are emotional" or "men are sex-addicts," but those are just cases of probably invalid stereotypes. That said, I will try to answer OP's question -- "Why do people try to put gender into stereotypes?" Laughably, the word "gender" roughly refers to the stereotypes of the sexes, which makes the question kind of funny to read for me. But that's kind of irrelevant, so I'll just substitute "sex" for "gender" and answer that. The reason is that people see a group, infer that they might share some characteristics, and try and determine those characteristics. Whether the stereotypes are right is a matter not limited to sex. For the purposes of this post, though, it might be O.K. to say that stereotypes of the sexes are pretty limited in usefulness. Not because there aren't trends, but because each sex comprises such a large group, that applying those trends to an individual is bound to be wrong a very large amount of the time.

I believe that Men are stronger physically and Women are smarter mentally. Even though we live in a new world today, you can't change what each gender is physically and mentally. (On an average scale of course) BUT I do also believe that both genders should have both equal opportunities and respect.

I believe that Men are stronger physically and Women are smarter mentally. Even though we live in a new world today, you can't change what each gender is physically and mentally. (On an average scale of course) BUT I do also believe that both genders should have both equal opportunities and respect.

I do NOT often hear that one... what's your basis, if you don't mind me asking?

I believe that Men are stronger physically and Women are smarter mentally. Even though we live in a new world today, you can't change what each gender is physically and mentally. (On an average scale of course) BUT I do also believe that both genders should have both equal opportunities and respect.

I do NOT often hear that one... what's your basis, if you don't mind me asking?

I believe that Men are stronger physically and Women are smarter mentally. Even though we live in a new world today, you can't change what each gender is physically and mentally. (On an average scale of course) BUT I do also believe that both genders should have both equal opportunities and respect.

I do NOT often hear that one... what's your basis, if you don't mind me asking?

For starters, it says this was the first time that women have tested higher. People generally don't put stock in IQ tests anyway, so it doesn't say much (although good on women). The only thing this video seems to highlight that psychologists ROUTINELY have studied for ages is that women are more risk-averse than men... which is why they (on average) are healthier, make better financial decisions, etc. Men are more prone to gambling, smoking, high-risk leisure activities etc. so it's no wonder our life expectancies are lower and there's perceptions about how we are not careful with our lives. All of that has been quantified and pretty much remains unchanged.

I would not derive that women are "smarter" from this though. I'm not advocating that men are smarter is a better stereotype. But if you like that conclusion, maybe find another source... I'm sure there's better literature out there to your liking

I believe that Men are stronger physically and Women are smarter mentally. Even though we live in a new world today, you can't change what each gender is physically and mentally. (On an average scale of course) BUT I do also believe that both genders should have both equal opportunities and respect.

I do NOT often hear that one... what's your basis, if you don't mind me asking?

For starters, it says this was the first time that women have tested higher. People generally don't put stock in IQ tests anyway, so it doesn't say much (although good on women). The only thing this video seems to highlight that psychologists ROUTINELY have studied for ages is that women are more risk-averse than men... which is why they (on average) are healthier, make better financial decisions, etc. Men are more prone to gambling, smoking, high-risk leisure activities etc. so it's no wonder our life expectancies are lower and there's perceptions about how we are not careful with our lives. All of that has been quantified and pretty much remains unchanged.

I would not derive that women are "smarter" from this though. I'm not advocating that men are smarter is a better stereotype. But if you like that conclusion, maybe find another source... I'm sure there's better literature out there to your liking :)

Well I guess I didn't mean smarter, I more meant stronger mentally I guess. Like women always have to deal with the kids and cook and clean. Women in general are better with their hands and problem solving since women made clothing, delt with children, were in charge of the money, cooked and cleaned.

Lol... Look, I don't want to fight I'm not sure I can even respond to that without arguing or going on a mad google spree to dig up the studies I read in college that say otherwise. Gotta study my emergency procedures anyway.